“It was madness at the beginning”

Damien Rice Music started with a loan of £500 from my dad to buy an 8-track. We did some demos (‘Blower’s Daughter’ and ‘Older Chests’) and David Arnold gave me the money to buy some more equipment so I could record at home, where I felt most comfortable.

I then had the freedom to mess about, make mistakes and slowly rediscover. I wanted to record and release the album myself because I didn’t want to be told what I could or couldn’t do. I had an idea and I just wanted the space to be able to follow it through. Compromise often ends in vegetarian chicken soup.

It was madness at the beginning with everything behind schedule for the release. The books were still getting printed as the albums were being sold into the shops. I was going more and more into debt, ordering albums without having the money to pay for them.

Those were a crazy couple of months of work for myself, Lisa and Tomo. Niamh our publicist, a friend Niall and RMG Distribution took up some shovels with us, to help out. Chaos. And a lot of stress. But out of the chaos came some wonderful new people: Fiona, who now runs our label full-time, and Ben and Rob who manage just about everything else brilliantly, and I get to be a musician again. Amen.

I could go into a ream of bullshit about how and why it worked or didn’t work. The truth is I don’t know. But it appears to me that it’s possible to get started and to see it through. If you have a reason for doing something, you’ll do it.

The means comes after your conviction to the reason, as long as you stay true.